Author: admin
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Be Part of Creating Quakers in London!
Nominations Committee are looking for Friends to fill essential roles which will shape the future of Quakers in London
The Committee would particularly like to hear from more friends who haven’t yet become involved, especially younger friends.
Each of us has valuable skills, and a unique perspective which could enrich the Quakers in London community and help make it a more vibrant, creative, and inclusive Area Meeting. Ask if you feel called to serve, or if you know a Friend who may be well placed to do so.
Nominations Committee are currently looking to fill the following roles:
- Treasurer
- Interfaith Interchurch Representatives
- Children and Young Peoples Representatives
- Outreach Committee
- Finance Committee
- Property Committee
- Employment Committee
If you would like to offer service yourself fill in an Offer of Service form!
You can make suggestions for Friends to be considered for the different roles using the QiL Nominations Suggestions Box.
The latest information, including terms of reference, is available on the Quakers in London Website: https://quakersinlondon.org/am-nominations/.
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Getting to Know: George
Name: George Barrow
Role: currently assistant clerk of London Quaker Property Trust and nominated as a trustee of QiL on its creation as a charity
Local Meeting: Having worshipped at Hampstead for about 15 years, I’ve recently moved my membership to Stoke Newington, which is considerably closer to home. Originally I was a member of a meeting in Birmingham, where I grew up.
What parts of your service are you looking forward to? Before retirement I was very successful in keeping below the radar in Quaker terms but I’ve enjoyed the last four years as an LQPT trustee – particularly working on the development of the Better Homes strategy. The creation of QiL seems like a logical extension of this work. I believe it is something that will present us with possibilities and opportunities, with the dividend of releasing and redirecting our energy as Quakers into more rewarding work and witness.
What is something you would like people to know about you or your role? I know that LQPT has from time to time been viewed with a bit of suspicion but I’ve found that the trustee group has brought together some really committed, caring people who want to support meetings (with or without Meeting Houses) and see them flourish, while shouldering the real responsibilities that running a charity brings
What’s your favourite quote from QF&P?The extract from QF&P I most commonly use is Isaac Pennington’s “helping one another up with a gentle hand”. The message is not just about helping, it’s how “one another” recognises that any of us might be the helper or the helped, depending on where and when, and what we have to offer.
To get to know our community better, we are publishing a series of posts introducing Quakers in London including (but by no means limited to) “trustees in waiting” and role holders! If there is someone you would like to learn more about, or you would be interested in introducing yourself, please email us at quill@quakersinlondon.org.
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Getting to know: Mary
Name: Mary Stiasny
Role: I am a relatively new member of the London Development Group, having been asked to join it fairly recently. I have also just been appointed to be a Trustee of the new QiL.
Local Meeting: I am a Member of South East London Area Meeting; I attend Forest Hill Meeting – and have done so for a very long time!
What parts of your service are you looking forward to? I see this as the service I can give to London Quakers, having had so much given to me as a lifelong Quaker. My Quakerism is at the centre of my being. I hope we can together build a vibrant Quaker community across London which is outward looking and appeals to non-Quakers – not just to ourselves! It is time for us to grow as a community and as a religious group.
What are you getting up to outside of Quakers? Outside the Society I am retired from working in universities, yet still very involved with higher education in various ways, and I like to spend lots of time with my husband, children and grandchildren.
What’s your favourite quote from QF&P? My favourite piece from QF&P is Advice 17, and I especially love that last sentence; ‘think it possible that you may be mistaken’, because it reminds us that we need to be open to the meanings others bring; that we are not ourselves infallible.
“Do you respect that of God in everyone though it may be expressed in unfamiliar ways or be difficult to discern? Each of us has a particular experience of God and each must find the way to be true to it. When words are strange or disturbing to you, try to sense where they come from and what has nourished the lives of others. Listen patiently and seek the truth which other people’s opinions may contain for you. Avoid hurtful criticism and provocative language. Do not allow the strength of your convictions to betray you into making statements or allegations that are unfair or untrue. Think it possible that you may be mistaken.”To get to know our community better, we are publishing a series of posts introducing Quakers in London including (but by no means limited to) “trustees in waiting” and role holders! If there is someone you would like to learn more about, or you would be interested in introducing yourself, please email us at quill@quakersinlondon.org.
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Regional coordinators needed for peace gathering
Can you help?
September 19th 2026 – London
Plans are underway for a National Quaker peace gathering in London on Saturday 19 September 2026. This date has been chosen for its proximity to the United Nations International Day of Peace. The event will take the form of a Silent Walking Vigil. Key details are available at: https://quakervigilforpeace.org/. The website includes core information about the vigil and an opportunity to express interest and sign-up for updates.
Might you be interested in getting involved as a local organiser?
- Local organisers would tell everyone about the Vigil.
- Explore having a local Vigil for Friends who can’t travel to the event
- Be a point of contact with the organisers
If this would interest you, please contact Josh at joshs@quaker.org.uk
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University Meetings as a Gateway to the Wider Quaker Community
Agnes Sales reflects on her experience of the University of Bristol Quaker Meeting
Following the event on the 21st July about outreach to universities, Agnes Sales, a Friend involved in the Quaker work at Bristol University has shared the following reflections.
If you would be interested in joining with other friends across London in talking about university work in the city, please email Josh (joshs@quaker.org.uk) to be connected.
The meeting at the University of Bristol has been an integral part of my Quaker faith and weekly routine. Before joining, I was already a regular at the Multifaith Chaplaincy and had attended Central meeting a couple of times that year. One day in October, I saw a couple of people sitting in silent worship in the quiet room, decided to join them.
Initially, there were only three of us, but I invited my friends and we steadily grew – I think our biggest meeting had 17 people! Some people came and went and a few of us turned up consistently every Wednesday lunchtime. We started doing ‘Quaked potatoes’ and a few of us started attending Redland meeting and joining the Becoming Friends course. The University meeting has provided a gateway to the wider Quaker community, enabled me to make new friends of all ages and have a consistent way of engaging with my faith when I cannot come on a Sunday morning.
I have always appreciated the more casual nature of our meetings, where we have afterword, food and conversation and where some people move around and minister in ways that they don’t feel comfortable to do elsewhere. We have developed a real community that feels strong and fulfilling.
The chaplains of other faiths in the Multifaith Chaplaincy have also provided great company and support, whether that be pastoral support or simply making tea. I’m sure that a Quaker chaplain would be appreciated not only by the students who regularly attend the Quaker meeting but also other students who who may have questions about Quakerism or need pastoral support.
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The Festival of Biblical Literature
The Festival of Biblical Literature will be held in Ealing Meeting House between 12th and 14th August 2026. This is the third year for the festival.
The festival celebrates the Bible as a collection of literature, with seminars, music and poetry. The purpose of the festival is not to convince people of a particular set of beliefs, but to increase the use and enjoyment of the Bible as a common literary resource. The festival is independent of and does not receive funding from any religious, political or ideological group.
All the speakers have an academic background and the artists include Philip Gross, a Quaker and winner of the TS Eliot prize. Lunch, tea and coffee are provided.In his Swarthmore lecture, Stuart Masters reminded us of the importance of the Bible to early Quakers.
The festival provides an opportunity for Quakers to reflect on how they might use the Bible to challenge people who are quoting from scripture to support views and policies that are not in line with Quaker values.
For more information and to book tickets go to https://www.festivalofbiblicalliterature.co.uk/ -
Getting to Know: Bernadette, lDG Co-Clerk
This post is part of a short series on getting to know some of our newly appointed Friends to QiL committees.
Name: Bernadette
Role: Co-Clerk to London Development Group
Local Meeting: Brentford and Isleworth
What parts of your service are you looking forward to?: Worship and discernment with other LDG members (and the wider London Quaker community) on how best to bring forward this simplification project for London friends.
What do you wish more Friends understood about your role?: How many elements there are in the merger work and the delicate balance between getting on with it… and taking the necessary time to get it right.
What’s your favourite quote from QF&P?: “For a Quaker, religion is not an external activity, concerning a special ‘holy’ part of the self. It is an openness to the world in the here and now with the whole of the self. If this is not simply a pious commonplace, it must take into account the whole of our humanity: our attitudes to other human beings in our most intimate as well as social and political relationships. It must also take account of our life in the world around us, the way we live, the way we treat animals and the environment. In short, to put it in traditional language, there is no part of ourselves and of our relationships where God is not present.” – Harvey Gillman, 1988 (21.20)
Anything else to say?: My thanks for the upholding and the loving support.
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Two Quakers Who Changed Bermondsey Forever
Featured image: ‘Dr Salter’s Daydream’ by Ethan Doyle White, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Last month, London Link teenage Quakers gathered for a residential weekend at Forest Hill Meeting House in south London – and one afternoon took them on a journey back into one of the most remarkable chapters in the borough’s history.
Guided by local Quaker Sheila Taylor, the group walked the streets of Bermondsey to trace the lives of Ada and Alfred Salter: a couple who, driven by their Quaker faith and a fierce sense of social justice, set about nothing less than transforming one of the most deprived corners of Victorian and Edwardian London.
Who were Ada and Alfred Salter?
When Ada Brown arrived in Bermondsey in the late 1890s as a social worker, she found a neighbourhood of crushing poverty: overcrowded slums, rampant disease, and streets without a single tree. It was there that she met Alfred, a doctor who had turned his back on a comfortable Harley Street career to set up a surgery in a converted shop on Jamaica Road, where he treated poor patients for little or nothing. As his friend and political ally Fenner Brockway later wrote, their partnership on Jamaica Road “brought something little short of a revolution to Bermondsey and its people.”
They married in 1900 and both committed to the Society of Friends, becoming Quakers. Their faith was inseparable from their politics. They helped found the Bermondsey branch of the Independent Labour Party, and Alfred created in miniature an “NHS before the NHS,” importing the latest medical clinics and facilities into the borough.
Ada became Mayor of Bermondsey in 1922 – one of the first female mayors in the country – the first ever female Labour mayor. In the same year Alfred was elected Labour MP for Bermondsey West. From these positions they drove through an ambitious programme: slum clearance, new cottage-style housing estates, vastly improved sanitation, and Ada’s beloved Beautification Committee, which had planted 7,000 trees on the new estates and streets of the borough by 1930.
Their personal tragedy makes their public achievements all the more extraordinary. Their daughter Joyce, born in 1902, was adored throughout Bermondsey. Locals called her “our little ray of sunshine.” In 1910, aged just eight, she caught scarlet fever during an epidemic and died. Ada’s sadness never quite left her; it was in her eyes and in her expression all through the years. And yet both threw themselves still deeper into their work. The grief they experienced spurred them further on to improve conditions in the area.
London Link Group’s Step Back in Time
The group’s tour began at Wilson Grove, the cottage estate Ada designed for working-class families each home built to a standard almost unimaginable for Bermondsey at the time, with a living room, scullery, bathroom, hot and cold water. From there they walked to the Thames riverfront, where the Salter statues stand. The sculpture, known as “Dr Salter’s Daydream,” depicts the family at a happy time in their lives. It has its own troubled history: the original statue of Alfred was stolen in 2011, presumed melted down for scrap metal. The community raised £60,000 to replace it, and at the same time a statue of Ada was added, recognising that she was very much a figure worth honouring in her own right.
The walk ended in Southwark Park, with a picnic lunch in the Ada Salter Garden, a fitting place to rest among the trees and flowers that Ada fought so hard to bring to her neighbourhood.
Remembering the Salters
The Quaker Socialist Society runs the annual Salter Lecture – a highlight of our Birtain Yearly Meeting. Each year a speaker is invited to address themes of social justice, equality, and conscience, values that Ada and Alfred embodied throughout their lives. Past lecturers have included politicians, activists, and environmental thinkers, keeping the Salters’ spirit of principled, faith-rooted radicalism alive into the present day.
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Getting to Know: Sam
This post is part of a short series on getting to know some of our newly appointed Friends to QiL committees. The first post is from Sam – co-clerk to Arrangements Committee.
Name: Sam
Role: Co-Clerk to QiL Arrangements Committee
Local Meeting: Westminster local meeting
What parts of your service are you looking forward to?: I really care about making our Area Meetings feel, light, cheerful and fun. I hope they’re times we can come together and enjoy each other’s comapny as we tackle discernment together. For a long time, I’ve heard about lots of Friends feeling tired and fed up with the process of transitioning into a single London Area Meeting. I so so SO hope that we can soon become unburdened by many of the administrative tasks and that we can start to hear from Local Meetings about areas of real Quaker concern.
What do you wish more Friends understood about your role?: I’m here to offer my service to you, the Friends who have appointed me through a process of spiritual discernment into this role. Sometimes Friends will approach me ready for a bit of a fight. To mis-quote my testimony to peace, I’m a lover not a fighter… And I really want What’s best for our Quaker communities too.
What’s your favourite quote from QF&P?: “Creativity is the gift that we were given on the eighth day of creation. In naming and re-making the world we are co-workers with God, and whether we are making a garden or a meal, a painting or a piece of furniture or a computer program, we are sharing in an ongoing act of creation through which the world is constantly re-made.” – Jo Farrow, 1994. This is just a small excert but the whole section (21.38) is great! The mention of the eighth day of creation has left my mind in a tangle a thousand times and has occupied my mind in a lot of Meetings for Worship.
Anything else to say?: Please come and say hi if you see me at JLAM (or anywhere else!). One thing I love about Quakers in London is that it’s been a great source of new f(F)riendships.